Chapter 23: Aftermath
For a few too long, drawn out seconds, there was only stillness. Ryou stood at the door, taking in the sight before him. His eyes travelled from Bakura to the sea of letters around him, the open box, the letter in Bakura's hands. His face visibly paled.
"What...? What the hell are you...?"
Bakura lifted the letter he was holding. "You... You missed me?"
Ryou's eyes snapped back to Bakura, wide and terrified. He seemed to blanch even more. "What...?"
Bakura shook the letter a bit. Or maybe his hand was shaking. "You said it. Right here. You said you missed me."
Ryou swallowed. He looked lost for a few seconds. He grabbed the doorframe, maybe for stability, looking like he was about to keel over. Bakura had never seen that look on his face before. Ryou opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out.
"You missed me," Bakura said again. No matter how much he repeated it, his brain still couldn't register it. It was impossible to absorb. He stared at Ryou, at the unmasked terror on his face, and tried to imagine him feeling anything other than hate towards him. He tried to picture him saying the things he'd just read, to imagine Ryou's mouth shaping the words. 'I miss you.' 'We could have been happy.'
It was impossible.
"This—" Ryou stammered. "This isn't—" He took a deep breath. His face hardened; he pushed himself away from the doorframe and snatched the letter out of Bakura's hand, nearly tearing it in half. "These aren't yours!" He scrambled to pick the letters off the floor. He grabbed the box and started stuffing letters in, the paper scrunching loudly. "These aren't yours!" he repeated, breath coming out in pants. "These aren't—You had no right—No fucking business—!"
Bakura watched without moving, still sitting on the carpet. His hand was hovering in front of him, holding an invisible letter. His thoughts were stuttering.
He followed Ryou's jerky movements, heard his breath come out in pants as he shoved letters
in the box. He looked at Ryou's profile and tried to think—
'I miss you so bloody much I can hardly stand it.'
"You wrote these letters to me," he said. His voice sounded faraway.
Ryou's head snapped towards him, eyes blazing. "This doesn't—You had no right—" There was still a bit of fear there. A bit of panic, behind everything else. For the first time, Bakura saw this anger for the front that it was; he could see the cracks, right there. It looked so put upon, he wondered how the hell he hadn't seen it earlier.
"You missed me," Bakura repeated.
"Shut up!" Ryou shouted. "You don't understand a fucking thing! You—" He grabbed a handful of letters and shoved them inside the box, gritting his teeth. "These weren't—You had no right—"
Ryou's voice was cracking, despite the anger. He was hiding, even now. Hiding behind rage and hissing words and—
Bakura did not take his eyes off Ryou's face. "You tried to kill yourself."
The box slipped from Ryou's hands and hit the floor with a crash, spilling its contents out around his feet. "Shit—No—" For a second, Ryou looked like he'd have a breakdown right then and there. He covered his eyes with his hand and took a deep breath in. "You don't understand a fucking thing."
"Explain then," Bakura said, and he didn't care if it sounded like he was pleading.
Ryou lowered his hand and looked at Bakura with such pure fury that all other emotions were wiped from his face. "I don't have to explain anything to you. You had no right to read any of this. No right to—You broke into my house! What the hell are you even doing here, huh?"
Bakura stared. Somehow, somewhere in the back of his mind, he remembered the Spellbook. All of that seemed incredibly distant and irrelevant now.
He pointed at the box that lay upturned between him and Ryou. "What you said. In that letter. Did you mean it?"
Ryou crouched and started shoving the letters back in the box, pressing his lips hard together.
For a few seconds, Bakura hesitated. He opened his mouth, working up the courage to form the next word. "Ryou," he said at last. The name felt unfamiliar in his mouth; it left his heart racing.
"Shut up!" Ryou shut the lid of the box and stood up, holding it protectively under his armpit and angling it away from Bakura. "Forget everything you read. Everything! Do you understand? This wasn't—I didn't know what the hell I was talking about half of the times, and—"
"You weren't lying," Bakura said.
"Stop acting like you know me!" Ryou hissed. "These letters—I wasn't right in the head, okay? I was—You'd fucked me up! I thought I missed you, and I didn't realize until later how fucked up that was!"
Bakura did not believe that for a fucking second. It hadn't been just the one letter, it had been... everything.
"You said... You said other stuff," he said. He couldn't bear to say the 'happy' thing out loud.
"What do you want, huh? To hear just how fucked up I was? What the hell do you want?" Ryou yelled. Color was flushing rapidly back to his face, a bright, angry red.
Bakura wanted an explanation. He needed one, or he'd go fucking crazy. Because this was—
"That feeling. In your head," he said. There was a hitch in Ryou's breath, the smallest pause in his panting. "Is it still there?"
Ryou worked his jaw, then pressed his mouth into a thin line. "You don't understand a thing."
"Ryou," Bakura said, serious.
For a split second, Ryou looked pained, right before trying to scrunch his face back into a furious expression. "You had no right to read any of that."
"You wrote those letters to me."
"Yes, because—!" Ryou stopped talking abruptly and covered his eyes with one badly shaking hand. "I—It was all I knew! That doesn't make it right, or—" He pressed his fingertips into his eyes. He breathed in hard.
Bakura dared climb to his feet. He moved slowly, his whole body feeling numb. He took a step towards Ryou.
"Ryou..." he tried again, softly.
"No!" Ryou hissed, dropping his hand from his face and taking a sharp step back, glaring at Bakura. "Don't! I can't do this again! I—I did this once already! You left and I—I was left to deal with it! I won't say I mourned you, but... I learned how to cope. I had to—I had to learn. And now you... You don't get to walk back in here as if none of this mattered!" he finished in a shout, even though there was a hint of trembling in his bottom lip.
Bakura tried to approach him again. "Ryou—"
"No!" Ryou backstepped again, body tensing as if he was ready to fight. "Shut up! Don't say my name! Don't—" Tears filled his eyes, spilling down his cheeks. Ryou wiped them angrily. "You had no right to do any of this! Any of it! You—" A sob escaped him, and he wiped his eyes even more furiously, rubbing his sleeve against them. "You had no right to come back and put me through all this shit again!"
Bakura stared at him. Ryou's face was distorted in anger, but there were tears still flowing down his cheeks, and Bakura had never felt more lost.
"I didn't—" he stammered, stupidly.
He hadn't come back to put Ryou through any shit. He hadn't meant any of that to happen—not now, not in the past. He couldn't even understand how it had all happened. He couldn't understand what he had done.
"I didn't mean for any of this to happen to you," he said at last. It sounded pathetic even to his own ears, but it was the best he could come up with.
Ryou laughed. It was a horrible laugh, wet with tears and still, somehow, sounding harsh and fake and bitter. "Well, thank you very fucking much."
"It's true. Ryou, I—"
"I said—" the tears stopped, and Ryou's gaze turned sharp with anger, "stop saying my name!" He wiped at his cheeks once more. They stayed dry this time. His eyes were smoldering.
Bakura looked back at him, unable to find something worthwhile to say. He tried to reconcile the words he'd read with the Ryou that was glaring down at him now, face flushed and hot with anger.
"The things you said. You sounded..." Bakura paused. The word happy was still echoing weakly in his head. We could have been happy. I could have shown you a way.
Ryou's face morphed into something like disgust. "Yes, stupid little Ryou thought all you needed was a little bit of kindness. Silly, huh? Don't worry. It took me a while, but I figured it out. No matter how kind I were to you, you wouldn't have changed. No matter how much I trusted you, you'd always fuck me over. Cause this is who you are. That's all you ever were."
The loathing in Ryou's face almost made Bakura take a step back. But still. He shook his head. "I'm not who I was back then."
Ryou let out a hollow chuckle. "I don't care. I'm not who I was back then, either. There's no going back."
"Ryou..."
"Sweet stupid little Ryou is gone," Ryou snapped. "I have figured it out now. You don't deserve my kindness. You don't deserve chances. You don't deserve a fucking thing. You don't deserve this." He gestured towards Bakura's body and suddenly he looked pained, on the verge of tears again. "Why? Why are you back? Why you, of all—?" He stopped talking to cover his eyes with his hand. He took a couple of deep breaths and, when he lowered his hand, his face had hardened back into a mask of disgust. "Of all the people I've lost, I never thought you would be the one I'd get back."
Bakura didn't know what to say. He didn't know why he was back either, but he didn't ask for this. He'd gladly give his place to anyone else. Hell, he'd gladly give his place to Amane, if he could. Just because his landlord—
Because Ryou didn't deserve any of this shit. He never did.
It was all a fucking mess.
He didn't know what to say.
Ryou wiped his eyes again, even though they'd been dry for a while now. "Get out," he said. He wasn't shouting anymore, but he didn't sound calm; not by a long shot. "Get the fuck out."
"No. Wait. I—" Bakura had no idea what he was supposed to do or say, but he knew he had to say something. He couldn't leave like this; not after all he'd read and heard and—
"Get out!" Ryou shouted this time, one hand shooting out to point at the door. "Out! Get the fuck out!"
Bakura lifted his palms in an appeasing gesture. "Ryou, please, just—"
"Get out and never come back! You hear me? Don't you dare set foot near me again!"
It was no use. He'd only make Ryou angrier, and that—
That wasn't the way.
"Okay. I'll go," Bakura said. His voice sounded like it was coming from very far away. Maybe leaving was the wisest thing to do, after all. He needed to think, and turn it all over in his head, and then maybe it'd make some sense—
"Out!" Ryou screamed. He grabbed a scalpel off the cluttered desk and lifted it over his head, threatening to throw it. "Out!"
"Alright! Okay!"
Bakura gave Ryou as wide a berth as he could and walked out of the bedroom, out of the apartment and down the five flights of stairs. He'd almost reached the ground floor when he heard a door slam somewhere overhead.
Bakura walked out to the street, noting distantly that the sun had set and the streetlamps were on. How much time had he spent in Ryou's room? He'd completely lost track of... everything.
He turned his head, searched with his gaze for Ryou's window. He thought he caught a glimpse of Ryou's face before the curtains closed rapidly.
Part of him wanted to go back, climb all the way back up to Ryou's apartment and face him and—
And do what? He didn't know that either. He just felt he had to do something.
His hands were moving restlessly, clenching into fists and then unclenching. He stood under the light of a streetlamp and rolled a cigarette. He lit it and welcomed the smoke into his lungs. He took deep drags, waiting for the nicotine to kick in and quieten the trembling in his hands.
What was he to do now, then? He couldn't go back to the Golden Egg, with its throng of drunkards and Ishido's cronies around every corner. If he were to be honest, what he needed was to go to Malik's, but the Tomb Keeper was still in goddamn Tokyo. Where were his allies when he needed them the most?
A full two minutes passed before he managed to force himself to move. He started walking down the street and made a random turn. His feet carried him quickly, full of nervous energy, his brain barely thinking about it. He couldn't stop seeing Ryou's face in front of him: his pure terror when he found Bakura reading the letters. It had been terror—at first, at least. Not anger. Terror.
Ryou had been terrified of Bakura finding those letters. That had been why he'd forbidden him to enter his room; it was the only thing that made sense. He hadn't wanted Bakura to set eyes on those words.
They had been true. It had all been true; that much he was certain of. Everything, down to the most bizarre and unbelievable detail. Ryou's drinking, and his struggling with school, and then struggling to make ends meet, getting disowned by his father, and... Bakura. Hearing Bakura in his head even after he'd been long gone. Not being able to withstand the emptiness in his head. Missing him.
Missing him.
It was nuts. He didn't know what to make of it.
Without even thinking about it, he took out his phone and dialed Malik's number. He huffed while waiting for him to pick up, but it rang several times and then went to voicemail.
With a curse, Bakura put the phone back in his pocket. He looked around; he didn't recognize the street he was at. It didn't matter. He took another random turn and kept walking.
Ryou had tried to tell him yesterday. He'd told Bakura that he was to blame for everything, and Bakura had laughed at him. He'd thought it had all been just a convenient excuse.
He could see it now. He could see how everything had started with Ryou failing high school and then... it had snowballed from there. Bakura had never thought about that way, but—
Apparently, things had turned hard enough that Ryou had resorted to a suicide attempt.
Shit. Shit shit shit—
'What if I end up where he is?'
That line made Bakura's skin crawl. And he was glad Malik had found Ryou and taken care of him before anything irreversible happened.
He took out his phone and called Malik again. It went to voicemail once more. He waited five minutes and tried again. No luck.
Bits and pieces of Ryou's letters replayed themselves in his head. Broken sentences, all superimposed on the mental image of Ryou's terrified face, Ryou's angry face, Ryou crying and saying—
'You had no right to come back and put me through all this shit again.'
Bakura paused under the neon light of a store sign and rolled another cigarette. His hands were shaking.
'Put me through all of this shit again.'
What had Ryou meant? Just the drinking, or—?
And dammit, Bakura hadn't meant for any of this to happen. He'd meant what he'd said yesterday: his gripe was with the Pharaoh and maybe his vessel. Not with Ryou. He had never meant to harm Ryou. He'd meant to scare him, sometimes, to keep him in check, he'd meant to threaten and manipulate, but... not actively harm him.
It was too much. Everything Ryou had said. It was—
'You left and I had to deal with it. I won't say I mourned you, but I learned how to cope.' That's what he'd said, right? And yet, what Bakura had read counted as some sort of mourning, however indirect. Ryou had written about missing him; about going to the bar Bakura used to go; about hearing him in his head and who knew what else. Who knew how much more he'd written; how many more letters were in those boxes.
Nobody had ever mourned Bakura. Three thousand years ago, when his body dissolved in the sand, everyone must have breathed a sigh of relief. And, eleven years ago, when Zorc was defeated and his spirit left the Millennium Ring, everyone had surely cried out in joy.
Everyone except Ryou, apparently. Even after everything, he still had it in him to feel some grief for him. To miss him.
Damn. Who had ever missed Bakura in all of his thousands of miserable years of existence? Who...?
Ryou said he didn't feel like this anymore. He said that sweet little Ryou was gone. And frankly, Bakura couldn't blame him.
'No matter how much I trusted you, you'd always fuck me over. Cause this is who you are. That's all you ever were.'
Bakura finished his cigarette, threw the butt away and immediately rolled another one.
Fuck. Was it truly all he ever was?
He liked thinking that he wasn't like the other scum in the Golden Egg, just like he liked thinking that he wasn't like the other petty thieves back in Egypt. Nah, he'd been the King of Thieves. He'd been special. So, so special.
He bit out a bitter laugh. Well, maybe Ryou was right. Maybe that was all he ever was: a double-crossing, sneaky, selfish piece of shit. Capable of nothing more than ruin.
He'd thought the end justified the means. He'd thought that, because he'd been wronged by the Pharaoh, he had every right to wrong everyone else. In his effort to crush his enemies he'd become just like them. Hell, worse than them. What he'd done to Ryou didn't make him any better than the Pharaoh. Or any better than Ishido.
His phone rang and he nearly dropped his cigarette in his haste to pick it up. It was Malik.
"Fucking finally," Bakura growled in the phone.
"What's up? I'm at work, but I saw your calls—"
"Can you talk now?"
"Sort of. I'm on a break. What's wrong?"
Bakura took a deep breath, licked his lips. "Listen. I broke into Ryou's apartment."
"You what?" Malik shrieked.
"Shut up and let me finish. I found things. Letters. He'd written letters to—"
"Amane? I know."
"To me," Bakura growled. "He'd written letters to me."
There was a brief silence on the other end of the line. "You read them?"
"Yeah of course I read them!" Bakura took a deep drag, tried to collect his thoughts. "Why did you never tell me?"
"Tell you what?"
"Everything! About Ryou! He—he tried to kill himself! And he wrote me a letter saying he fucking missed me. He missed me!" His hand was shaking as it held the phone to his ear.
He heard Malik sigh. "Oh, that. Yeah, um... I know."
"I know you know! He said you found him when he tried to off himself!" Bakura snarled. He turned around another random corner, walked down a street full of boarded up shops.
"Yeah, calm down and let's—"
"Don't tell me to calm down!"
"Where are you?"
"Why does it fucking matter—?"
"Are you still at Ryou's?"
"Of course not, he kicked me out, shouting to never set foot there—"
"Wait, he kicked you out? He caught you there?"
"Yeah, he walked in while I was reading—"
"Shit," Malik hissed. "Some thief you are."
"I know, okay?" Bakura shouted in the phone. "I know I messed it up, but that's not even the point! The thing is I—he—" He stopped again, huffed. "You knew about all this?"
It was Malik's turn to sigh. "I don't know what Ryou's written in those letters or how much you read but... I know enough."
"Why didn't you fucking say something?"
"Like what?"
"I don't know! A heads-up would have been nice!"
"Would it have changed anything?"
This made Bakura purse his mouth. He thought of Ryou, and all the hours they'd spent in a room trying to translate the Spellbook, glaring daggers at each other, barely able to stand each other's presence. Would it have changed anything, if Bakura knew...?
He didn't know. He didn't know. This whole thing was nuts.
Apparently, Bakura had stayed silent long enough, because Malik sighed and said, "Alright, look, this isn't the sort of thing to discuss over the phone. I'll be back in a couple of days, so just calm down and wait until—"
"I am calm!" Bakura barked.
"Yeah, okay." He could hear the eye-roll in the Tomb-Keeper's voice. "Still, I can't really talk much right now, and I—"
"And what am I supposed to do now?"
"How about 'nothing'?" Malik said. "Just—don't do anything. You'll only make it worse. Wait till I'm back, okay?"
Bakura let out a growl of frustration but said nothing. He feared he'd go crazy in the couple of days it'd take Malik to get there, but he didn't say that out loud.
He didn't know what he expected of the Tomb-Keeper, anyway. What could Malik do to make this better?
Without saying anything more, he hung up and put the phone back in his pocket. He felt even more lost than he had before the phonecall. He didn't know what he wanted.
Part of him wanted to go back to Ryou's and—
And what? He didn't know.
Fuck. He needed to clear his head.
He started walking again. He rolled another cigarette. Then another, and another, until he ran out of tobacco. At some point, his feet took him to known neighborhoods, with familiar signs and buildings. He hadn't realized how many hours had passed until he saw the stores turn off their lights and roll down their shutters.
He felt no fatigue. His head was still swarmed with sentences in Ryou's handwriting.
'Spirit, I went out looking for you again.'
'I keep waking up feeling happy to see you.'
'Maybe I've always been like you, deep down, and maybe that was why I was chosen to be your host.'
'If you had let me, I could have shown you another way.'
His feet led him back to the Golden Egg; he realized it only when the garish light of its sign hit his eyes. He lifted his head to see Enki at the doorway, in front of a small queue of club-goers.
Bakura walked past them without talking and went straight to the staircase. There were people and noise around him, laughter, chatter. Bakura felt as if he were in a tank full of water. He didn't even bother to hurry or hide. If Ishido or any of his men tried to give him any chores, he'd just tell them to go fuck themselves. He couldn't deal with anything else right now.
The third floor had the usual traffic: men who came and went and the girls loitering at their doorways.
Yuki noticed him at once and smiled, waving a hand. "Hello there, grumpy—" She stopped almost immediately, her grin turning into a frown. "Uh-oh. What's wrong?"
"Nothing." Bakura walked past her and went to the door of his room, but she followed him and leaned on the wall next to him.
"Hey, come on. Talk to me," she said.
"I'm fine," Bakura gritted out, searching in his pockets for his key.
"You're definitely not fine," Yuki insisted.
"Just leave me—"
"Is this about this Ryou guy again?"
Upon hearing Ryou's name, Bakura froze. His fingers fumbled with his key.
"Aha," Yuki said, a hint of triumph in her voice.
Bakura gave up with a huff and stared at his closed door to avoid Yuki's eyes. "I—I kinda fucked up."
"How badly?"
Bakura shook his head. Where to begin?
"I did a shitty thing." Then he thought it over. "I did lots of shitty things."
Yuki grinned. "Should I bring the booze?"
Bakura didn't crack a smile. "It's... bad. Yuki. I—" He pressed his fingertips into his eyes and took a deep breath. Keep it together, he thought.
"Shit. That bad, huh?"
He dropped his hand and nodded.
"Listen, why don't you come in?" She gestured towards her room. "I can't promise we can help, but we can lend you an ear. Come on."
He shook his head. "No, I'd better—"
"We won't judge. I promise."
Bakura looked at her. She didn't look critical or disgusted. If anything, she looked concerned.
He wasn't sure how she managed to persuade him but, five minutes later, he was sitting on the floor in Yuki's tiny room, his back against her bedframe. Yuki, Mei and Rin were huddled around him, all three pairs of eyes on him.
"Here you go," Yuki said, passing him a bottle. Without even checking the label on it, Bakura brought it to his lips and drank. He welcomed the burning in his throat.
"You look like crap," Rin remarked.
Bakura shrugged. He bet he did.
"So, what happened?"
Bakura didn't look at them. "I fucked up pretty badly," he said.
"With Ryou?" Yuki asked.
Bakura shuddered upon hearing his name. He nodded.
"What did you do?"
And Bakura told them. In between gulps of alcohol, he told them about breaking into Ryou's apartment and finding the letters. Then he paused, hesitating.
"He used to write letters to his dead sister," he explained, "even back when... I first met him. They were all in those boxes, along with... Letters to me. He'd written letters to me." He took a large swig. He saw the girls exchange glances.
"Your landlord wrote letters to you?"
"He wasn't just a landlord," Bakura said impatiently. "I called him that, but he was... more." A lot more, he wanted to add, but he couldn't explain the supernatural stuff without sounding crazy.
"A boyfriend?"
"No!"
"So, those letters... Were they love letters?"
"No!" Bakura shook his head fervently. And then he paused. Were they? The thought was oddly terrifying. "Look," he said. "I wronged him. I... I fucked up his life. I'm the reason he got horrible grades, and didn't get into college, and then his father disowned him, and now he has to work a shitty job and apparently he was, or is, I don't know, an alcoholic, and he was also suicidal, but even so somehow he missed me?" He took another swig. "He said he missed me, and he said that things didn't have to be like that, that we could have been happy, and—I don't know what to make of it. It's nuts."
The girls all stared at him.
"That sounds like a lot," Rin said.
"Tell me about it," Bakura mumbled.
"Wait, he missed you?" Yuki asked. "I thought he hated you."
"I thought so, too!" Bakura yelled hoarsely. "I mean, he said so too. In his letters. Multiple times. He said he hated me but..."
"He also said he hated your absence," Yuki said.
Bakura nodded. "Exactly."
"Why is this so terrible, though?" Rin asked. "So, maybe he missed you, maybe he hated you. I thought you didn't care what he thought about you. That's what you said last time."
"Yeah, cause last time I didn't care! But this... This changes everything!"
"Why?"
At that, Bakura remained silent. Why indeed...?
It was an annoying question, because he had no answer. He didn't know why. All he knew was that, every time he thought about Ryou wanting to give him a chance to be happy, he wanted to claw his own stomach out.
He gazed at the bottle to avoid their eyes. Then he started talking in a low voice. "Do you know what it's like... to be hated? Truly hated, by everyone, for all of your life?"
The girls looked at each other. Rin shrugged, and Yuki said, "I know what it's like to be looked down upon."
Bakura shook his head. "That's not what I mean. Ever since I was a kid, all anyone ever wanted was to destroy me. One way or another, that's all they ever wanted. All of them. And I thought that was all Ryou wanted, too. He was just one of many. I'd thought, 'You hate me? Well, get in line, buddy.' But—"
That was where he paused again. The girls were listening carefully.
"No one had ever wanted anything beyond my destruction. All the chances I took, I had to create myself. Then, enter this kid..." He took a big swig, still avoiding the girls' faces. "When I met Ryou, he was just a kid. He was bright, and curious, and very, very lonely. I thought, 'Here's someone I can use.' So I did. And he hated me for it. Pretty straightforward, right?"
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the girls nod; he heard Mei murmur, "Of course."
"And now, all these years later, I meet him again, and I find out hate was not all he felt. He... He wanted to give me chances. Real chances. A chance to—"
'We could have been happy. But you left, leaving me with no chances and half a soul I don't know what to do with.'
"He showed me kindness," he went on. "Even though I did nothing to deserve it." He looked at the bottle, shook it and heard the alcohol slosh in it. "He was the only one who ever showed me kindness."
"But you have other friends, right?" Mei asked. "Those two guys who came to visit you a while back. I met one of him in the bathroom; he was very nice."
"Ah, yes. That was Malik. And the other one was Ryou."
He heard the girls gasp.
"That was Ryou?"
"And he came here?"
"Why, of all places—"
Bakura shook his head impatiently; these questions didn't matter now. "Malik is nice, but he's not really a friend. More like... an ally." Even as he said it, he swallowed. He very distinctly remembered Malik calling him a friend.
"He seemed very kind," Mei said.
"He is," Bakura agreed, "but he wasn't always so kind. He's more like me. A reformed asshole."
His own words made him pause. Was that what he was, then? 'Reformed'? When the hell did that happen?
Maybe he shouldn't put himself and Malik in the same sentence. Malik really was reformed, through and through. He'd changed so much since Battle City. Whereas Bakura... Well, what about him was reformed? He still stole and robbed every chance he got, he threatened people, he fought in an illegal cage for a living. The only difference was that now he sometimes felt bad about it.
He remembered the kid in that apartment by the docks, the one Ishido's men had beaten up while Bakura had stood guard at the door. He'd felt disgusted back then. And he felt disgusted by Ishido on a daily basis.
Was that all it took for someone to be reformed? It sounded incredibly cheap. The easy way out; a convenient tale he could tell himself to go to sleep with a somewhat clearer conscience.
Maybe he wasn't really reformed. Ryou was right to hate him. Especially after everything.
He looked at the bottle.
"He drinks because of me," he said. "And he failed school because of me. His father disowned him because of me—"
Yuki shook her head. "That sounds a bit far-fetched."
"It's true. I can see it now. I destroyed his life. He tried to tell me, but I laughed at him."
"Did you really have that much power over him? Enough to destroy his life?"
A slow, bitter smirk stretched Bakura's mouth. "You have no idea."
The girls looked perplexed, and maybe a bit troubled. Rin bit her lip. "Alright. So you agree that he's right to hate you. What's the problem, then?"
Bakura huffed, frustrated. "The problem is!" He gestured fiercely with the hand that held the bottle and a bit of alcohol spattered out. "I never knew any of that! I never—I never wanted any of that! I never meant to ruin his life!"
"So, it was an accident?"
"No! And—Yes! Kinda." Another frustrated huff. "I wasn't myself back then. I wouldn't—" I wouldn't do half the shit I did if Zorc hadn't been fucking with me, he thought.
"So you're different now?" Mei asked.
"A reformed asshole, like you said earlier?" Yuki said.
"I... think so," Bakura said.
"Does Ryou know?"
"I've told him."
"Have you showed it to him?"
"I've tried," Bakura mumbled, remembering how he had walked Ryou home every night and how he'd tried hard to not get on his nerves. Before they up and argued in a dingy Ainomo alley, that is.
All those efforts seemed stupidly small right now. They were nothing, compared to the depth of Ryou's emotions. Of course nothing had changed. Things wouldn't change just because Bakura had managed to not get on Ryou's nerves for one day.
"It doesn't sound like you tried hard enough," Yuki remarked.
"Yes, because! I thought it was unfair that I was the only one who had to try!"
"Do you still think so?"
Bakura remained silent for a few long moments, thumbing the mouth of the bottle. "No," he murmured. "No, not anymore." Ryou hadn't really wronged him, after all. He had nothing to make up for. Bakura, on the other hand...
"Are you willing to try now?" Yuki asked.
There was silence again. Bakura didn't know what to answer. He didn't know if there was even a point in trying to change Ryou's mind. Why should he, anyway? Why should Ryou change his opinion of him? He had every right to hate Bakura. And Bakura himself knew a thing or two about righteous hate.
He hated the Pharaoh, and that would never change. Even if they dragged the Pharaoh before him and told him how much he's changed and how sorry he is, Bakura wouldn't care. Even if the Pharaoh turned into the holiest person imaginable, it wouldn't change a thing. So why should things be any different for Ryou?
"He's entitled to his hate," he said. "I can't take that away from him, too."
"Yes, but if you've changed—"
Bakura shook his head. "It doesn't matter."
"And are you okay with that?" Rin asked.
Bakura huffed. No, no he wasn't okay with that. But maybe he had no right being okay after everything he'd done. "What difference does it make?" he said gruffly.
"You're right," Yuki said. "What matters is doing better in the future. Being better."
Bakura chuckled at that, sharply and bitterly. 'In the future'. He had no future. All he had was half a plan to get out of this earth. He was planning to die—and Ryou was counting on that, too.
Maybe that was the best gift he could give to Ryou: die. Get away from him once and for all.
"Maybe I should just leave him alone," he said. The girls looked at each other.
"I thought you'd left him alone for years," Yuki said, "but that didn't make things any better for him, did it?"
Damn it. She was right. In fact, Bakura's absence seemed to have made things worse, for a while at least.
...Shit. He thought of Malik again, and of how useful his help would be right about now. Malik could get Ryou. He might be able to explain how his brain worked.
"He says he wants me gone," Bakura said.
"I thought you are working together on a project of sorts?" Mei asked.
"Yes, we are, but afterwards..." He let his sentence fade.
Yuki shrugged. "Until then, you can do your best."
Bakura rolled his eyes. "I told you, I tried—"
"I thought we agreed that you didn't try hard enough."
"Well, he doesn't make it easy!"
Yuki nodded solemnly. "That's why you have to try hard."
Bakura drank. The world was feeling a bit fuzzier, distant. It was good, at the moment; he needed it. He drank again. "I told you," he said at long last. "I deserve his hate. I won't take that from him."
"Who said anything about taking his hate from him?"
Bakura frowned at Yuki.
She saw his confusion, and went on. "You can try to be better, even if he doesn't change his mind. Because, frankly, yeah, it does sound like you did some shitty things to him. But maybe now is the time to do the things you didn't do the last time. To act the way you wish you'd had acted back then. You can be a decent person, even now. Even if he doesn't stop hating you—" Yuki shrugged. "You'll have tried. That will be one regret off your shoulders."
Bakura kept staring at her.
To try, even if Ryou never changed his mind... No, to try knowing that Ryou wouldn't change his mind. To try despite of that.
It sounded like a fool's errand, and yet it made something in his brain click.
He looked at the scar on his left palm. He thought of trapping souls in miniatures; thought of driving the prongs of the Millennium Ring in soft skin; he thought of lying, and manipulating, and pulling shadowy strings; of dragging a sharp blade through flesh, and threatening, and blackmailing; of making the tightest little prison for his host's conscience and stuffing him in, muffling his cries and locking him up.
Of course. How could Ryou, or anyone, ever forgive him?
With a pang and a bit of a shock, he realized that what he was feeling was guilt. Good, old-fashioned, overwhelming guilt.
It felt like a full-brain itch. Like the roof of his mouth and the back of his tongue were on fire and he were sweating from within. His eyes wanted to cower and hide inside his skull.
It felt like something needed to get out, to push out from between his ribs and crawl through the pores of his skin. Keeping it inside was unbearable. But he didn't know what good it would do. That was the worst part: he couldn't go back in time. He couldn't erase the wanted to slap himself into oblivion for all the things that he'd done, but that wouldn't change anything. Not a thing.
He could mentally slap himself all he liked, he could remind himself that he was the worst for every waking moment, he could spend the rest of his days trying to be better, act better, to do some good, but it wouldn't undo the bad. They were etched in time, forever. And he would remember them forever. He would carry them in his head, like a weight behind his eyes; his own personal purgatory, forever lodged inside his skull. And it served him right. He knew it did.
Regret? Sure, he felt regret. He felt regret for a lot of things.
What good was regret to anyone?
The answer was: no good. Regret set nothing right.
Should he try, then?
Maybe, for the sake of balance in the universe. Do enough good to maybe outweigh the bad. It wasn't a great plan, but it was better than nothing.
It wouldn't be enough for him to earn forgiveness, but he didn't want it anyway. If he couldn't change the past, he didn't deserve to be forgiven for it.
But he could try to make amends. To those he wronged. Not for his sake, but for theirs.
Maybe that was what this was about: this chance at life, this sudden resurrection. Maybe he was thrown back into this life to undo all the shit he did in the previous one.
But how?
Well, that was what he had to figure out.
Maybe Malik could help him with that—especially where Ryou was concerned. He'd definitely have some good advice to give, a couple of ideas on where to begin.
All Bakura had to do was have a bit of patience. Malik would be back the following night so, and Bakura would go find him and ask for his help. And then he'd start the hard work of undoing all his shit.
Yeah, that sounded like a plan.
He looked at Yuki and lifted his bottle in a half toast. "Thanks."
It had been a few exhausting days, but Malik was pretty happy about it. It had been hard but satisfying work, and he got to perform some really neat tricks. He couldn't wait to tell his friends about it.
Speaking of...
What the hell had Bakura done now? His phonecall had been concerning. Breaking in Ryou's apartment? Finding and reading Ryou's private letters? And then, getting caught red-handed on top of it all?
Malik left them alone for a few days and this is what he came back to?
He sighed; his breath fogged up the train window. Outside, trees rushed past, inky black in the night.
He'd reach Domino soon. He'd go home, take a nice long bath, sleep his ass off and then, tomorrow, he'd call Bakura and see exactly how badly he'd messed up.
Ryou hadn't been willing to talk about it. Malik had called him, and he' told him he knew what Bakura had done, but apart from telling him that he'd kicked his yami out, Ryou hadn't said much about it. He'd seemed to purposefully avoid answering some of Malik's questions, telling him they'd talk about it after Malik would be back.
Of course, that was all very understandable. Malik could more or less imagine what Ryou had written in those letters, even though he'd never read them himself. It wasn't hard to guess; Malik had lived everything first-hand. And he knew exactly how sensitive that information could get.
The question was, how much had Bakura read? How far back had he managed to get? Well, he'd learned about Ryou's suicide attempt, that much was certain. Malik shuddered at the memory of it; the corners of his mouth turned downward. He hated thinking about it, and Ryou and he had made a sort of silent pact to never talk about it, but now...
Now he'd have to discuss it. With Bakura, of all people. Because he'd sounded like he had questions.
And Malik wasn't sure how many answers he had the right to give. Those weren't his secrets to tell—and discussing Ryou's dark past with Ryou's worst enemy sounded... shitty, frankly. On the other hand, it might help Bakura see Ryou in a different light. It might help bring them a bit closer, maybe?
Ugh. Who was Malik kidding? He was being too optimistic.
He'd have to talk to both of them. He kinda hated that he was the one who had to do damage control again, but oh well. It couldn't be helped. They had a job to do, and Malik had to make sure that Ryou and Bakura would cooperate for at least a while longer.
Had they made any progress with the Spellbook? That was a good question. Had they managed to sit together without arguing for even an hour? It was doubtful.
A clear female voice sounded over the train speakers. "Next stop: Domino."
He was finally back. Malik got up, stretched, and reached for his bag.
A few minutes later, he set foot on the Domino station platform and turned his eyes to the lights of the city.
It was a couple of hours past midnight and the streets were mostly empty, except for a few cars and night busses. Malik waited at the bus stop. A few minutes later, the bus arrived and he climbed in; he was one of the few passengers, and he sat by the window, looking out at the street.
He took a deep breath and smiled. Nothing quite like home.
Twenty minutes later, Malik got off the bus, heaved his bag onto one shoulder, and set out for his home. It was only a couple minutes' walk from the bus stop to his street, and he hummed under his breath as he walked.
He was so caught up in dreaming of a warm bath and sleeping in his bed, that he didn't notice the figure sitting on the steps outside his building. He was about a dozen feet away when he registered the shadow at the entrance.
It was too dark to see properly, but he thought he saw a mane of wild hair. Malik's feet faltered; he stopped in his tracks, body tensing. He narrowed his eyes.
His heart started beating fast, pumping adrenaline into his veins. He tried to tell himself to calm down. It was just someone with wild hair; his body was only reacting like this because he had conditioned himself to notice this trait. It was probably nothing.
But still, he didn't move. His pulse didn't calm down.
The figure at the doorway noticed him. It was a man; he moved. With a bit of gracelessness, he stood up, and light hit his wild, wild hair: it shone golden.
Malik's pulse screamed, and then it all quietened down into cold, poised alertness. He watched as the man walked into the light, facing him. And then it all came to a halt.
Malik looked into a pair of lavender eyes. He saw the familiar nose; the familiar mouth; eyebrows, jawline, cheekbones, forehead. That wild golden hair framed it all, completing a picture straight out of Malik's memories and his worst nightmares.
For a second, Malik felt as if suspended in a dream. In the background, his brain screeched; a high, terrified whine.
The man took a step towards Malik. His body was a mirror of Malik's, and yet it wasn't; it was so different in the way it stood, in the clumsiness of its limbs, the awkwardness in the gait. It was a parody. It was a reverse image. It was the negative of what it should be.
The reverse image looked at Malik. Those familiar, familiar lavender eyes blinked.
Terror drowned Malik. It climbed up his throat, blocked his nostrils, and he couldn't breathe. It filled his skull, building up. Then, after reaching an agonizing crescendo, it all dissolved like a wave that hits against rocks, leaving behind a numb realization, summed up in one word.
Mariku.
His yami. He was here.
Mariku. It was Mariku. Mariku, standing before him, under the light of the familiar streetlamp, in front of Malik's home. Mariku had been sitting on the steps; sitting, and waiting. Waiting for Malik.
A million thoughts swarmed Malik's mind at once, and his highly trained senses took in the sight, calculating, muscles tensing in readiness. His thoughts jumped to Bakura, and then Atem: more than two months in this world, living and breathing among them.
Two months.
How naïve Malik had been.
But no. He'd had a suspicion, deep down. That was why he'd kept looking over his shoulder while in Tokyo.
He narrowed his eyes at Mariku, hand gripping the strap of his bag. "So, you are back," he said. He couldn't recognize his voice. He hadn't heard that tone come out of his lips in years. He didn't care.
Mariku did not respond. He looked confused, like he didn't know what to say. Which was odd in and of itself.
How long had he been sitting there? How long had he been waiting? Was it minutes? Hours? Days?
Malik looked at him carefully. Mariku's hands were empty; no weapons or anything that could be used as a weapon. No bag. No Millennium Rod—of course. He was wearing unfamiliar clothes, which meant that at least he hadn't broken into Malik's apartment and stolen his stuff.
And, in the background of his thoughts, Malik kept hissing, How naïve I've been! How stupid!
Because of course Mariku was here. The rest of the yamis were here, so why should Malik have gotten off so easily?
Yet, for a while, he'd really believed—
He grit his teeth. Well. Reality had caught up to him, at last, huh? Mariku was here. He was standing before him, in the flesh, looking at him, and Malik had to do something about it. They couldn't stay here in this stand-off forever.
Mariku still looked lost. No veins popping on his forehead, no mad cackling. "Um... Hello," he said, slowly enunciating the word, like it felt weird on his tongue. The voice, though, the deep, guttural voice made the hair on Malik's skin stand on end. "I want to talk to you," Mariku said, still slowly, like he was trying out the words.
What the hell was going on?
Malik had questions. Oh, he had questions—and now that the shock was wearing off, he could feel anger starting to simmer.
He'd deal with this, then. He'd had years of training and preparation. He could handle this.
But they couldn't stay here. There was no way Malik would take him up to his apartment—no way in hell he'd willingly open up his house to his yami. No. He had to figure out something else.
He had the keys of The Crow on him. And it was past 2 am on a Tuesday. The bar would be empty at this hour—they'd have probably closed about an hour ago. It was fifteen minute trek from here. It would do.
And, most importantly, Malik was not afraid of him. And he'd make that very, very clear.
He turned on his heel, heaving the bag on his shoulder, and started walking back the way he'd come. He took a couple of steps and then turned his head towards Mariku, not quite looking at him.
"Keep up, will you?"
.
.
.
.
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Author's notes: 1. I have made a Last Puzzle playlist on Spotify. Fanfiction net won't let me post links, but you can go on Spotify and type "The Last Puzzle" in the search bar. If you're interested, keep an eye on it, because I add new songs every now and then.
2. Huge thank you's to everyone for the favorites, the comments, the music suggestions, the coffees, and the support. Y'all are awesome
